Books - Hard-boiled Wonderland and the End of the World

Ch. 1 (Elevator, Silence, Overweight)

It was then that she said, "Proust". Or more precisely, she didn't pronounce the word "Proust", but simply moved her lips to form what ought to have been "Proust". I had yet to hear a genuine peep out of her. It was as if she were talking to me from the far side of a thick sheet of glass. Proust? "Marcel Proust?" I asked her. She gave me a look. Then she repeated, "Proust." I gave up on the effort and fell back in line behind her, trying for the life of me to come up with other lip movements that corresponded to "Proust". Truest? … Brew whist?

… Blue is

it? … One after the other, quietly to myself, I pronounced strings of meaningless syllables, but none seemed to match. I could only conclude that she had indeed said, "Proust". But what I couldn't figure was, what was the connection between this long corridor and Marcel Proust?

Perhaps she'd cited Marcel Proust as a metaphor for the length of the corridor. Yet, supposing that were the case, wasn't it a trifle flighty—not to say inconsiderate—as a choice of expression? Now if she'd cited this long corridor as a metaphor for the works of Marcel Proust, that much I could accept. But the reverse was bizarre.

A corridor as long as Marcel Proust?

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Ch. 5 (Tabulations, Evolution, Sex Drive)

“This, however, is something that only those who have grown up sitting on good sofas will appreciate. It's like growing up reading good books or listening to good music.”

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Ch. 7 (Skull, Lauren Bacall, Library)

I placed the skull on top of the TV. Very stylish. If I were Ernest Hemingway, I'd have put it over the mantle, next to the moose head. But my apartment, of course, had no fireplace. No fireplace and no sideboard, not even a coat closet. So on top of the TV it was.

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I took some ice out of the freezer, poured myself a large quantity of whiskey, and added a splash of soda. Then I got undressed and, crawling under the covers, sat up in bed and sipped my drink. I felt like I was going to fade out any second, but I had to allow myself this luxury. A ritual interlude I like so much between the time I get into bed and the time I fall asleep. Having a drink in bed while listening to music and reading a book. As precious to me as a beautiful sunset or good clean air.

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I replayed my usual fantasy of the joys of retirement from Calcutecdom. I'd have plenty of savings, more than enough for an easy life of cello and Greek. Stow the cello in the back of the car and head up to the mountains to practice. Maybe I'd have a mountain retreat, a pretty little cabin where I could read my books, listen to music, watch old movies on video, do some cooking… And it wouldn't be half bad if my longhaired librarian were there with me. I'd cook and she'd eat.

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Ch. 13 (Frankfurt, Door, Independent Operants)

As the menus were unfolding, sleep descended. All at once, as if the sky had fallen. Cello and cabin and cooking now dust to the wind, abandoning me, alone again, asleep like a tuna.”

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Ch. 15 (Whiskey, Torture, Turgenev)

With great pain and difficulty, I propped the door up in place, then, as per doctor's orders, I climbed into what there was of my bed with Turgenev's Rudin. Actually, I'd wanted to read Spring Torrents, but I would never have found it in my shambles of an apartment. And besides, if you really think about it, Spring Torrents isn't that much better a novel than Rudin. I got up and went to the kitchen, where I poked around in the mess of broken bottles in the sink. There under spears of glass, I found the bottom of a bottle of Chivas that was fairly intact, holding maybe a jigger of precious amber liquid. I held the bottle-bottom up to the light, and seeing no glass bits, I took my chances on the lukewarm whiskey for a bedtime nurse. I'd read Rudin before, but that was fifteen years ago in university. Rereading it now, lying all bandaged up, sipping my whiskey in bed in the afternoon, I felt new sympathy for the protagonist Rudin. I almost never identify with anybody in Dostoyevsky, but the characters in Turgenev's old-fashioned novels are such victims of circumstance, I jump right in. I have a thing about losers. Flaws in oneself open you up to others with flaws. Not that Dostoyevsky's characters don't generate pathos, but they're flawed in ways that don't come across as faults. And while I'm on the subject, Tolstoy's characters' faults are so epic and out of scale, they're as static as backdrops. I finished Rudin and tossed the paperback on top of what had been a bookcase, then I returned to the glass pile in the sink in search of another hidden pocket of whiskey. Near the bottom of the heap I spied a scant shot of Jack Daniels, which I coaxed out and took back to bed, together with Stendhal's The Red and the Black. What can I say? I seemed to be in the mood for passe literature. In this day and age, how many young people read The Red and the Black? I didn't care. I also happened to identify with Julien Sorel. Sorel's basic character flaws had all cemented by the age of fifteen, a fact which further elicited my sympathy. To have all the building blocks of your life in place by that age was, by any standard, a tragedy. It was as good as sealing yourself into a dungeon. Walled in, with nowhere to go but your own doom. Walls. A world completely surrounded by walls. I shut the book and bid the last thimbleful of Jack Daniels farewell, turning over in my mind the image of a world within walls. I could picture it, with no effort at all. A very high wall, a very large gate. Dead quiet. Me inside. Beyond that, the scene was hazy. Details of the world seemed to be distinct enough, yet at the same time everything around me was dark and blurred. And from some great obscure distance, a voice was calling. It was like a scene from a movie, a historical blockbuster. But which? Not El Cid, not Ben Hur, not Spartacus. No, the image had to be something my subconscious dreamed up.

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Having subjected the hallucination to this quick-and-dirty analysis, I reopened my book. But I was no longer able to concentrate. My life is nothing, I thought. Zero. Zilch. A blank. What have I done with my life? Not a damned thing. I had no home. I had no family. I had no friends. Not a door to my name. Not an erection either. Pretty soon, not even a job. That peaceful fantasy of Greek and cello was vaporizing as I lay there. If I lost my job, I could forget about taking life easy. And if the System was going to chase me to the ends of the earth, when would I find the time to memorize irregular Greek verbs? I shut my eyes and let out a deep sigh, then rejoined The Red and the Black. What was lost was lost. There was no retrieving it, however you schemed, no returning to how things were, no going back.

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Ch. 19 (Hamburgers, Skyline, Deadline)

I stopped to take a last look at my scrap heap of an apartment. Once again, life had a lesson to teach me: It takes years to build up, it takes moments to destroy. Sure, I'd gotten tired of this tiny space, but I'd had a good home here. In the time it takes to swill two cans of beer, all had sublimed like morning mist. My job, my whiskey, my peace and quiet, my solitude, my Somerset Maugham and John Ford collections—all of it trashed and worthless. The splendor of the fields, the glory of the flowers, I recited under my breath. Then I reached up and pulled the breaker switch to cut the electricity.

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Ch. 23 (Holes, Leeches, Tower)

As awareness spliced together, I noted the nylon rope. I was a piece of laundry blown off the line by gale winds. I had developed a habit of transposing my circumstances into all sorts of convenient analogues. The next thing I realized was that my body was missing from the waist down. I reassessed the situation. My lower half was there, just unable to feel anything. I shut my eyes and concentrated. Trying to resurrect sensations below the belt reminded me of trying to get an erection. The effort of forcing energy into a vacuum. So here I was, thinking about my friendly librarian with the gastric dilation and the whole bedroom fiasco. That's where everything began going wrong, it now struck me. Still, getting a penis to erect itself is not the sole purpose of life. That much I understood when I read Stendhal's Charterhouse of Parma years ago.

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No, these holes could go on forever. And I would never get to read that morning edition. The fresh ink coming off on your fingers. Thick with all the advertising inserts. The Prime Minister's wake-up time, stock market reports, whole family suicides, chqwan-mushi recipes, the length of skirts, record album reviews, real estate… The only thing was, I didn't subscribe to a newspaper. I'd given up on newspapers three years ago. Why? I felt disconnected. Converting numbers in my brain was my only connection to the world. Most of my free time I chose to spend alone, reading old novels, watching old Hollywood movies on video, drinking. I had no need for a newspaper.

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Ch. 31 ( Fares, Police, Detergent)

Above ground, fine needles of rain were coming down. On my last, precious day. It could rain for a whole month like in a J. G. Ballard novel, but let it wait until I was out of the picture. Today was my day to lie in the sun, listen to music, drink a cold beer.

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Ch. 33 (Rainy-Day Laundry, Car Rental, Bob Dylan)

Even if I had my life to live over again, I couldn't imagine not doing things the same. After all, everything—this life I was losing—was me. And I couldn't be any other self but my self. Could I?

Once, when I was younger, I thought I could be someone else. I'd move to Casablanca, open a bar, and I'd meet Ingrid Bergman. Or more realistically—whether actually more realistic or not—I'd tune in on a better life, something more suited to my true self. Toward that end, I had to undergo training. I read The Greening of America, and I saw Easy Rider three times. But like a boat with a twisted rudder, I kept coming back to the same place. I wasn't going anywhere. I was myself, waiting on the shore for me to return.

Was that so depressing?

Who knows? Maybe that was "despair". What Turgenev called "disillusionment". Or Dostoyevsky, "hell". Or Somerset Maugham, "reality". Whatever the label, I figured it was me.

A world of immortality? I might actually create a new self. I could become happy, or at least less miserable. And dare I say it, I could become a better person. But that had nothing to do with me now. That would be another self. For now, I was an immutable, historical fact.

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"Very good," she said. Her smile reminded me of a girl I'd known in high school. Neat and clear-headed, she married a Kakumaru radical, had two children, then disappeared. Who would have guessed a sweet seventeen-year-old, J. D. Salinger- and George Harrison-fan of a girl would go through such changes.

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Ch. 35 (Nail Clippers, Butter Sauce, Iron Vase)

Then she asked, "Whose Brandenburg is this?" "Trevor Pinnock." "Are you a Pinnock fan?" "Not especially," I said. "The tape just caught my eye. It's not bad." "Richter's is my favorite, but did you know Pablo Casals also has a version?". "Casals?" "It's not what you'd expect the Brandenburg to sound like. It's very interesting."

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"I wouldn't know," I said. I really wouldn't. "'I wouldn't know' seems to be a pet expression with you," she observed. "Maybe so." "And 'maybe so' is another." I didn't know what to say. "Why are all your thoughts so uncertain?" I wouldn't know, but maybe so, I repeated over and over in my head when the waiter arrived aruhwith the air of the court chiropractor come to treat the crown prince's slipped disc, reverently uncorked the wine and poured it into our glasses. "In The Stranger, the protagonist had a habit of saying 'It's not my fault'. Or so Iseem to recall. Umm—what was his name now?" "Meursault," I said. "That's right, Meursault," she repeated. "I read it in high school. But you know, today's high school kids don't read anything of the kind. We did a survey at the library not so long ago. What authors do you read?" "Turgenev." "Turgenev wasn't so great. He was an anachronist." "Maybe so," I said, "but I still like him. Flaubert and Thomas Hardy, too." "You don't read anything new?" "Sometimes I read Somerset Maugham." "There aren't many people who'd consider Somerset Maugham new," she said, tipping back her glass. "The same as they don't put Benny Goodman in jukeboxes these days either." "I love Maugham. I've read The Razor's Edge three times. Maybe it's not a spectacular novel, but it's very readable. Better that than the other way around."

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Ch. 37 (Lights, Introspection, Cleanliness)

I don't know why I was poking about in another person's kitchen. I didn't mean to be nosy, but everything seemed meaningful. Autumn in New York, by the Frank Chacksfield Orchestra, was next on the FM. I moved on to the shelves of pots and pans and spice bottles. The kitchen was a world unto itself.

Orchestral stylings over, the FM hostess floated her silken voice over the airwaves: "Yes, it's time to get out the sweaters." I could almost smell them. Images out of an Updike novel. Woody Herman swinging into Early Autumn. Seven-twenty-five by the clock-timer.

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Ch. 39 (Popcorn, Lord Jim, Extinction)

"Aren't you being a tad dogmatic?"

"Exactly what she said."

"Your wife?"

"Yes. 'Clear-headed, but inflexible'. Her exact words. Another beer?"

"Please," she said.

I pulled the ring on a can of Miller and handed it to her.

"But how do you see you?" she asked.

"Ever read The Brothers Karamazov" I asked.

"Once, a long time ago."

"Well, toward the end, Alyosha is speaking to a young student named Kolya Krasotkin. And he says, Kolya, you're going to have a miserable future. But overall, you'll have a happy life."

Two beers down, I hesitated before opening my third.

"When I first read that, I didn't know what Alyosha meant," I said, "How was it possible for a life of misery to be happy overall? But then I understood, that misery could be limited to the future."

"I have no idea what you're talking about."

"Neither do I," I said. "Not yet."

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I closed my eyes and tried to remember the names of the Karamazov brothers. Mitya, Ivan, and Alyosha—and then there was the bastard Smerdyakov. How many people in Tokyo knew the names of all these guys?

I gazed up at the sky. I was in a tiny boat, on a vast ocean. No wind, no waves, just me floating there. Adrift on the open sea. Lord Jim, the shipwreck scene.

The sky was deep and brilliant, a fixed idea beyond human doubt. From my position on the ground, the sky seemed the logical culmination of all existence. The same with the sea. If you look at the sea for days, the sea is all there is. Quoth Joseph Conrad. A tiny boat cut loose from the fiction of the ship. Aimless, inescapable, inevitable.

So much for literature. I drank the last can of beer and smoked a cigarette. I had to think of more practical matters. There was little over an hour left.

I carried the empty cans to the trash. Then I took out my credit cards and lit them with a match. I watched the plastic curl, sputter, and turn black. It was so

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"You've got to be kidding," she said. "I've gone and come back already. I wanted to finish the book I was reading."

"The Balzac?"

"Right. It's really fascinating. It was destined for me."